2.5/5
I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend Every Thing Will Be Fine, but I confess to having found some things to admire in it, even at its most ramshackle. It’s receiving a critical torching, and the critics are right; this is not a great film. It isn’t even a particularly good film, yet as I watched it, I found myself incapable of hating it. What can I say? Perhaps something was in the air that day.
Tomas (James Franco) is a floundering writer, the kind who sulks with cosmic purpose and buries himself in frost-bitten landscapes for inspiration. The movie begins with him waking up in a cramped shack, rolling out of bed, and immediately grabbing his scratchpad for notes. It’s the kind of ritual writers always tell you is an essential part of the process, but let me tell you something: in my time as a writer, I haven’t met a single person who actually does this.
He walks out into the calm of winter — exactly where isn’t quite specified — and finds some locals ice fishing, all of whom seem to know him by name. We suspect he’s been here awhile, and a call from his girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) confirms this. He tells her that he’s sorry for the way things have been, and he promises her that things will be different once he finishes his book. She seems distant and detached over the phone, as if the man she’s talking to becomes more unrecognizable with every call
She begs him to come home, if only just for dinner, and in a moment of clarity, he decides to do it. On the drive, Tomas begins fumbling with his phone, and the moment his eyes leave the road, disaster strikes: a little boy darts in front of the car and Tomas slams him head-on. The world stops for a moment. Tomas gets out of the car, and we’re struck with relief when the boy is apparently okay. If only it ended there. As Tomas leads the little boy back home, we can feel something is wrong. We meet the boy’s mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and as soon as everything seems alright, her face goes white. She asks where his little brother is, and in one of the films most effective moments, we realize what’s actually happened.
The accident is a catalyst for a series of events and revelations that trickle down through these people’s lives for over a decade. Great, except the consequences hardly ever feel real. There is a suicide attempt early in the film, and it comes and goes so quickly it might as well have never happened. Things like this would hurt more in a script with better developed characters, but the people of this story are as non-existent as the story itself.
And yet I can’t deny being along for the ride. In its cinematography and craftsmanship, the film has an ambience that I happily inhabited during the two hours it was on. Its location work is evocative, lending an inviting tact to the story even when the script wasn’t. Even the performances are worthwhile… occasionally. I’m not quite certain what accent Rachel McAdam’s was using, but she seemed to be handling it rather clumsily.
The movie was photographed in 3D, a decision director Wim Wender has made so deliberately that it might strike some people the wrong way. Its homely interiors and brooding landscapes are far cries from the garish spectacle more befitting of 3D, but by filming it in such a way, Wenders has achieved a rather marvelous thing: a quiet 3D film, one in which the stereoscopy augments tone and atmosphere so effectively that it becomes a part of the tapestry rather than a distraction from it. Having never been at the forefront of the stereoscopic movement, I was shocked by how taken I was with the results.
It’s a shame, therefore, that the drama itself isn’t meatier. I once went on a date with a girl who separated every ingredient of her sandwich before eating each one individually. The film does the same thing. It doesn’t possess a narrative as much as it does the cliff notes of one. There are many twists that bear promise, some of which flirt with the boldly operatic, but the movie never has the conviction to connect them or follow them through. What we’re left with is a palette rather than a painting. But it’s a rather striking palette at times, if only fleetingly.
Spencer Moleda is a freelance writer, script supervisor, and motion picture researcher residing in Los Angeles, California. His experience ranges from reviewing movies to providing creative guidance to fledgling film projects. You can reach him at: [email protected]